Seiryū Gongen is a female deity who protects Daigoji, a Shingon-sect Esoteric Buddhist temple in south Kyoto. Seiryū can be written with different Chinese characters, meaning either “pure waterfall” or “blue dragon”—a nod to her scriptural origins as the third daughter of the Dragon King, Shagara, who is associated with the sea and rainmaking. Based on an earlier painting once owned by Daigoji, this work shows her holding a wish-fulfilling jewel. Having just opened a sliding door, she looks down at a small girl holding a book. According to an inscription on the earlier work, the picture illustrates the dream vision of a certain Daigoji monk who described having seen the goddess deliver to a young girl teachings on Buddhist herbal medicine.
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清滝権現像
Title:Seiryū Gongen
Period:Nanbokuchō period (1336–92)
Date:mid-14th century
Culture:Japan
Medium:Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
Dimensions:Image: 35 13/16 × 17 5/8 in. (91 × 44.7 cm) Overall with mounting: 68 7/8 × 24 13/16 in. (175 × 63 cm) Overall with knobs: 68 7/8 × 25 7/8 in. (175 × 65.8 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015
Accession Number:2015.300.13
The goddess Seiryū Gongen is shown here as a full-cheeked, voluptuous woman wearing elaborate hair ornaments and courtly silk garments of white, blue, and green. Supporting a wish-granting jewel (Skt: cintamani) in her right hand, she stands majestically in a doorway facing a little girl who holds a book, the Kōyaku no shirushi bumi (Records of Miraculous Medicine), which the goddess has just given her. Although the painting is considerably damaged and has darkened with age, it is still possible to discern the delicate designs on the goddess's upper garment and details of a landscape painting on the sliding panel at the left-white cherry blossoms in full bloom and small water birds-which indicate that the season is spring. The name "Seiryū Gongen" can be written in two ways: depending on the characters used, seiryū means either "pure waterfall" or "blue dragon"; gongen can mean "god" or "goddess." The goddess was believed originally to have been the titulary deity at Qinglongsi (Blue Dragon Temple) in Chang'an (modern Xian), China. She is said to have been introduced to Japan by the monk Kūkai (774–835) and was later adopted as the protector deity of Shingon Buddhism at Jingōji, Kyoto. Seiryū Gongen was believed to be a manifestation of the deity Zen'nyo Ryūō, daughter of the Dragon King Sagara, whose enlightenment at age eight is described in the Lotus Sutra. Because of her association with the dragon, Seiryū Gongen had a dual mission as rainmaker and protector against floods. She was later introduced to Daigoji, Kyoto, and other Esoteric Buddhist temples, where her nature underwent a complex metamorphosis through the process of honji suijaku (see cat. nos. 31–33). As conceived for this doctrine, Seiryū Gongen was believed to be the avatar of two Mikkyō deities: Nyoirin Kannon (Skt: Cintamanichakra), an alleviator of suffering, and Juntei Kannon (Cundi), a deity associated with fecundity. The cult of Seiryū Gongen does not appear to have attained great popularity. Only two images of the goddess are known today, this painting and an earlier work now in the Hatakeyama Memorial Museum of Fine Art, Tokyo.[1] The earliest known reference to such an image, recorded in a document at Daigoji, dates only to the late eleventh century. In 1088, the monk Shōkaku (1057–1129) of Daigoji, while searching for a site for a shrine in which to house an image of Seiryū Gongen, had a vision in which the goddess appeared to him looking exactly like Kichijōten (Mahashri), the goddess of beauty and fecundity.[2] She was dressed as a court lady in a long-sleeved silk garment and held a cintamani in her left hand. Shōkaku commissioned two paintings to record his dream. When completed, these were stored in the sutra hall of Sanbōin, the subtemple of Daigoji that he had founded. Unfortunately, the fate of these paintings is unknown. The Seiryū Gongen in Tokyo bears two inscriptions. One refers to the goddess's appearance in an unnamed person's dream on the nineteenth day of the fourth month of the first year of the Genkyū era (1204–5). The other was written in 1262 by the monk Seishin of Daigoji, who dedicated the painting. Another document preserved at Daigoji refers to a painting of Seiryū Gongen made by the monk Shinken (1179–1261), also of Daigoji.[3] One evening Shinken dreamed of Seiryū Gongen, and he painted her image as she had appeared to him—dressed in layers of silk, holding a cintamani in her right hand, and having just given the Kōyaku no shirushi bumi to a little girl. The description corresponds closely to the Hatakeyama painting. This work was at Daigoji until 1895, when it was sold to the industrialist and noted collector Hara Tomitarō, and it is sometimes identified as the painting made by Shinken.[4] These stories of heavenly apparitions follow the typical pattern of medieval Japanese myths concerning the origin of portraits, secular as well as religious. Painted images of Seiryū Gongen were no doubt extremely rare, perhaps even nonexistent, before Shōkaku glimpsed her in his dream of 1088. Thus, in the absence of prototypes, the first image of her was very much influenced by the traditional representation of Kichijōten, a goddess frequently shown as a voluptuous court lady of the Tang dynasty. Except for the fact that it lacks an inscription, the Burke Seiryū Gongen resembles the Hatakeyama version in every other respect, and it too may have been connected with Daigoji. Stylistically, however, it seems to have been painted considerably later than the earlier picture, which may indeed have served as its model. Such features as the stiff brushstrokes and the generally rigid delineation of landscape details indicate a date in the mid-fourteenth century. [Miyeko Murase 2000, Bridge of Dreams]
[1] Reproduced in Tanabe Saburōsuke 1989, p. 142, fig. 19. [2] For literary sources, see Akamatsu Shunshū 1951, pp. l–26. [3] Ibid., p. 4. [4] Ibid., p. 14.
Maeyama Hisakichi 前山久吉 Japanese(before 1937); [ S. Yabumoto Co., Ltd. Japanese, Tokyo, 1968; sold to Burke]; Mary Griggs Burke , New York (from 1968; transferred to Foundation); Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation , New York (until 2015; donated to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," November 7, 1975–January 4, 1976.
Seattle Art Museum. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," March 10–May 1, 1977.
Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," June 1–July 17, 1977.
Tokyo National Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," May 21, 1985–June 30, 1985.
Nagoya City Art Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," August 17, 1985–September 23, 1985.
Atami. MOA Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," September 29, 1985–October 27, 1985.
Hamamatsu City Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," November 12, 1985–December 1, 1985.
New York. Asia Society. "Art of Japan: Selections from the Burke Collection, pts. I and II," October 2, 1986–February 22, 1987.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Japanese Art from The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," March 30–June 25, 2000.
Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," July 5, 2005–August 19, 2005.
Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," October 4, 2005–December 11, 2005.
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," January 24, 2006–March 5, 2006.
Miho Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," March 15, 2006–June 11, 2006.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Japanese Mandalas: Emanations and Avatars," June 18–November 30, 2009.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Kyoto: Capital of Artistic Imagination," July 24, 2019–January 31, 2021.
Tsuji Nobuo 辻惟雄, Mary Griggs Burke, Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha 日本経済新聞社, and Gifu-ken Bijutsukan 岐阜県美術館. Nyūyōku Bāku korekushon-ten: Nihon no bi sanzennen no kagayaki ニューヨーク・バーク・コレクション展 : 日本の美三千年の輝き(Enduring legacy of Japanese art: The Mary Griggs Burke collection). Exh. cat. [Tokyo]: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 2005, cat. no. 28.
Murase, Miyeko, Il Kim, Shi-yee Liu, Gratia Williams Nakahashi, Stephanie Wada, Soyoung Lee, and David Sensabaugh. Art Through a Lifetime: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection. Vol. 1, Japanese Paintings, Printed Works, Calligraphy. [New York]: Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, [2013], p. 23, cat. no. 36.
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